Students at American High School Spearhead an Organization to Spread  the Self-Discovery They’d Experienced in the Personal Creed Project

The Personal Creed Organization

15 June 2023

Fremont CA. June 2023 – During the last week of John’s classroom career, Naman Verma, a junior who’d been in John’s class the previous year, came into the classroom for a visit. As a sophomore, Naman had had a transformational experience with the Personal Creed Project and wanted to throw his support behind the project. In his junior year, he had come back to make a well-received guest Creed presentation for the current sophomores. And now Naman had come to announce that since Mr. Creger was retiring he had decided to start an organization, the Personal Creed Organization, and he hoped Mr. Creger would like to be involved. The purpose of the PCO was to carry the self-discovery of the Creed Project beyond American High School. John, in a heartbeat, signed on. A few days later, another student, sophomore Daniel Davis, whose original Creed presentation had been especially refreshing and meaningful to his classmates and to him, accepted John’s invitation to join in the effort. It’s been a busy, productive first year for the PCO.

Over the summer, the two students and their former teacher combined forces to create an online course version of the Personal Creed Project on the Udemy platform. As of now, around 400 students from over 60 countries have enrolled in the course. Though learning how to inspire all these students to engage a free course is a challenge, creating the course has given the PCO a great sense of confidence as a team. 

In the fall, entrepreneur-educator Dan Zhou, a friend of John’s with a longtime love for the Personal Creed Project, joined the organization, bringing his many business and web-related skillsets to the team. The team has laid the foundations for a growing online community and is seeking live events to promote self-discovery in education. Online, the PCO hosts a monthly Personal Creed Community Day, a weekly PCO Salon, and a weekly Two-Legged Teacher Talk support group for English teachers. A growing number of former students are becoming involved with the organization. The team is learning to plan for the long term while moving forward inch by inch.